Kinda feels like this week we’re cramming in a lot of work before jamming out the door for a de facto vacation week surrounding July 4th. As for me – true that. I’m fitting two weeks of work into one so I can go off the grid, head north and bike across Alaska for 10 days with my two boyz! Let’s just say that I won’t keep you posted.
BTW – there will be NO newsletter next week (July 3rd) so that the SMB Nation staff can enjoy some “me time” (and there are five Tuesdays in July) – we return on July 8th.
Cheers…harrybbbb
PS – Catch our webinar this Thursday: Going Beyond Backup to Recovery in Minutes, Thurs, June 28, 10-11am PDT
Harry Brelsford|Founder, SMB Nation, Inc.|www.smbnation.com
|
Link with me at LinkedInInIn
|
Be my friend on Facebook
|
Follow me on Twitter |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
eMazzanti Technologies Named one of Microsoft's 2012 Partners of the Year
By Regina Ciardiello, Editor at SMB Nation, Inc.
Over the weekend, our friend Carl Mazzanti, CEO of Hoboken, NJ-based
eMazzanti Technologies, informed us that his firm was chosen from 3,000 partner entries submitted this year for the 2012 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) Awards Program.
Per a letter Mazzanti received from Jon Roskill, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Partner Group, eMazzanti Technologies' Business Productivity Suite with Microsoft Windows Intune, Microsoft Windows 7 and Software Assurance was selected by Microsoft judges as the winner in the category Small Business Specialist Partner of the Year Award.
Know Which Clients To Avoid Before You Sign Them Up
Guest Post from Bob Vogel at B2 Marketing
There’s an old adage in the world of professional services: “Some clients ain’t worth havin.”
You know the type. They are the ones that complain the most, appreciate what you do the least, and are often the ones who are slow to pay your invoices.
If you’re still working on a break-fix or project basis, this is less of an issue because you can have your bad experience and never work for the son-of-a-b again. But if you are going to enter a longer-term managed services engagement with a recurring fee, it’s best to know what you’re getting into BEFORE you even draft up your proposal.
Best Buy's Corporate Assault on the SMB IT Guy
By Joseph Walker, Contributing Writer, SMB Nation, Inc.
Best Buy acquired mindSHIFT over seven months ago in a deal that rattled MSPs. I mentioned at the time that having Best Buy set its sights on the SMB IT market meant small-time solution providers would have to up their game, especially in the realm of cloud integration services. Yet, despite some token moves toward providing cloud services, my partners and I haven't taken my own advice.
Now, Best Buy has come to roost on our doorstep with mindSHIFT's acquisition of Austin-based
White Glove Technologies.
When I first started in the IT field, I was a straight-up computer repair technician. I removed viruses, replaced broken screens, saved data from failing hard drives, and did the occasional home or office network setup. At the time, we were going head-to-head against Best Buy's Geek Squad. Our service was better, our prices drastically cheaper, and our turnaround time faster.
Expand your Existing Business Model with Franchised Managed Network Services
The Managed IT industry is changing at a rapid pace. Office Technology Dealers are now vying for the same space as Managed Service Providers. To remain competitive, you need a full solutions portfolio. This presents a challenge for smaller MSPs. How do you offer a complete line of solutions while managing costs? The answer can be as simple as franchising. OKI is forging relationships with experienced IT franchising organizations that can help you offer a complete solutions portfolio out of the box. Let us know what you think by taking our one question poll on LinkedIn.
Microsoft Small Biz Competency Slashes Silver Status Fees Half Price
By Regina Ciardello, Editor at SMB Nation, Inc.
Earlier this week we heard from Nandakumar Moni, the senior partner marketing manager at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, shared with us that Microsoft Small Business Competency launched an exciting offer for Silver status – a 46% percent discount of just $999 against the usual price of $1,850. In addition, the tech giant announced other updates to the program, which
we first discussed here back in March.
In April, we followed up with a blog that discussed how the Small Business Competency was set to help partners move their SMBs to the cloud. In following up to this announcement, Julie Bennani, General Manager, Microsoft Partner Network, authored a blog on “How you can earn the MPN Small Business Competency.”
Message from SMB Nation Partner, PacketTrap
Through business process automation, MSPs have an opportunity to spend less time managing the business and more time doing business…and ultimately, more time with the customer. By automating processes like customer self-service, alerts, technician scheduling and management, business owners spend far less time on manual tasks. This also leads to a better work/life balance without sacrificing business. When evaluating, it’s important for MSPs to look for a solution that delivers the right balance of functionality and ease of use. For more information about PacketTrap PSA, please visit: http://www.packettrap.com/products/packettrap-psa/
Staking a Windows 8 Leadership Position: D&H Show
Steve Deming, well-respected Mid-Atlantic Solutions Specialist for Microsoft, provided one of the first opportunities for D&H resellers to look, feel and, yes, even LOVE the new Windows 8 platform. To our knowledge, D&H is the first national distributor to train its loyal resellers on Windows 8. That occured live last week at the 1,000+ attendee D&H Distributing Mid-Atlantic Show at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, PA.
Professional Support Staff for Less than $10 per Business Day
Always missing phone calls from new customers? Tied up answering phone calls instead of growing your business? Never miss those opportunities again with NEXT Receptionist Service
Using the latest in technology and tailoring our service to your instructions. Your NEXT Receptionist will greet your callers LIVE, announce calls to you, route calls to any number you designate, create work order tickets, take sales leads and even follow scripts that you put together. You can have a professional support staff for less than $10 per business day.
Just think, all of the benefits of having a professional and friendly staff without all the overhead, headaches and costs. Just Great Service!
Present a professional image while having the freedom to grow your business. Tend to clients knowing that you have a professional support staff behind you ensuring no opportunities are missed.
In business today image is important and having your phones answered by a trained professional cannot be overstated.
Call our sales team today at 866.245.3036 or visit www.nextsbs.com to get started on your 2 week FREE trial.
SMB Nation 2012 Fall Conference
Join us October 12-14 at the beautiful Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV for the 10th Annual SMB Nation Fall Conference.
This well-respected conference features over 30 educational sessions, presented by today’s top speakers, experts and trainers, such as Onuora Amobi, Michael Macho and Bob Godgart. Over 2/3 of our content is on the GeekSpeak Track, to give you the upper hand in today’s rapidly-shifting technology environment.
Key Benefits of this conference include:
• Opportunity to network with industry peers, exhibit hall sponsors and SMB 150 List members
• Learn the latest trends in technology and best practices for employing them
• Gain priceless knowledge about SMB industry trends and ways to keep your business strong
For more details about this event, please visit http://fall.smbnation.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.SMB.NAT1
Help us make this year’s conference the best yet!
Gain more purchasing power...
Just by tapping into the promos that D&H Distributing has brought to you from leading manufacturers: 5% off the entire Kensington lineup, 3% discounts on Intel’s Networking and SSD products, 3% off Samsung Mobile, Tablet and Memory skus and more. For the latest, check out www.dandh.com/smbnation.
For those SMB Nation Partners eager to source from a distributor that gets you, D&H Distributing, a national technology distributor focused on independent resellers has partnered with SMB Nation to bring you exclusive demos and promos to help with your solution sales for your SMB clients. At D&H, we are not just a distributor; we're a team of people working towards the same goal — to provide the industry's best service. Our business model is rooted in the tradition of taking a hands-on role in helping you achieve your goals, offering each solution provider customer a dedicated account representative, who works with each account on an ongoing consultative basis without using any off-shore services.
You can learn more about the benefits of doing business with D&H Distributing by visiting their website at www.dandh.com. Set up a free account and receive a $100 American Express gift card when you make your first purchase of $1000.
Channel Partner Weekly Power List
By Joseph Walker, Contributing Writer, SMB Nation, Inc.
The big story in the channel this week is one that is actually anti-channel partner: Microsoft’s announcement that it’s going vertical with its sexy new Surface tablet.
I don’t begrudge any company’s decision to take control of manufacturing of its products. Apple has definitely shown the benefit of that strategy. But it’s an entirely different thing to take complete responsibility for a product’s sales.
Google tried it with the Nexus—and has essentially failed at achieving any sort of market traction. Nevertheless, Microsoft will bypass the channel, at least initially, with its Surface sales strategy, offering it upon release only at its web and retail stores.
Productivity Tips: Split Window - Windows Snap
Guest Blog from Sudhir Diddee
Anyone who has worked on budgeting or analyzing reports and has had to contend with collating information across two programs into the final deck or document can identify with the nightmare it can be. Comparing printouts or cutting and pasting the numbers across the programs can be a tough task. This single improvement has saved countless hours for me. Here’s how it works:
For a quick way of resizing windows, use Windows Snap. Simply drag a window to the edge of your screen and it will expand vertically taking up half of your screen. Do it again for your second document, for side-by-side comparisons. Snap makes reading, organizing, and comparing documents easy.
CharTec Academy
The CharTec Academy is a two-day comprehensive training event for CharTec Partners to attend a variety of business enhancement training sessions designed to accelerate the success of their MSPs. From best practices in MSP sales and business operations to specific technical learning labs to HR and Accounting, CharTec offers sessions for every person in every department of your MSP. A sampling of sessions you are able to attend can be found here.
Promoting Adoption of the Could, Encouraging Additional Innovations
By Lamar Whitman, Director of Public Advocacy, CompTIA
We’ve heard so much about cloud computing, and Dan Shapero, technical marketing executive of ClikCloud and CompTIA board member, is no stranger to the subject. Shapero co-founded ClikCloud in 2011 to offer cloud-based marketing support to small businesses, including website and social media management, email marketing and website analytics.
“The cloud has created a frictionless market for us to deliver high value services at an affordable price point,” Shapero said. “Economies of scale afforded by the cloud help keep our capital costs down and help fix our operating expenses. In turn, we can put our efforts into value added service instead of maintenance of expensive infrastructure.”
Read the rest of this article hereThe Q2 Issue of the SMB Nation Magazine is HERE! Download NOW!
You can download
HERE
PH: 206-201-2943 Fax: 360-824- 6042